


Cigarettes and Red Vines

by TheShinySword



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Don't smoke cigarettes, Everything is Awful in Your Twenties AU, F/F, Future Fic, Implied Past TomoHIma, Sayotsugu mentioned, T for Teen smoking, ennui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/pseuds/TheShinySword
Summary: There's a Ran Mitake in her head that she knows she'll never be but all Ran can do is try.
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Mitake Ran, Mitake Ran/Udagawa Tomoe
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	Cigarettes and Red Vines

**Author's Note:**

> HEADS UP: So back in, uh, October I was playing with the idea of a "everything sucks in your mid twenties AU" and I mentioned a couple times working on a piece about Ran. That energy turned into Tokyo Incidents and for seven months this story has been languishing in my WIP folder since. Some friends convinced me to post what I have anyway so I've tided it up into a little short one shot that mostly functions on its own. But I think the history is interesting. I probably won't ever be finishing this but what does exist is interesting and I think worth sharing.

Ran knew sneaking up to the roof to smoke was a capital B capital I Bad Idea but there was a Ran Mitake in her head she was desperate to be and that girl smoked cigarettes and looked complicated on the roof.

She raised the cheap plastic lighter to the end of the cigarette with a shaky hand and barely a clue how to actually get the thing to work. It took a few impotent flicks before the lighter finally produced a weak flame that she touched to the cigarette. She’d seen it in movies before, she just had to breath in and—

“G-Guh!” Ran immediately gagged over the railing, the lit cigarette tumbling from her hand to somewhere far below. “Shit.” She tried to get a better view but it was too far down to see—already lost to a sea of trees. Hopefully, it wouldn’t catch on fire.

The newly minted delinquent tugged the pack from the waistband of her skirt. There were plenty of chances to get it right in the crumpled box. She pulled out another cigarette, lit it and— It was like her whole body was burning. She managed to let the horrible smoke into her lungs for a full second before it burst out of Ran like a pitiful explosion and she doubled over coughing.

“Woah! My beloved Ran has been kidnapped by a nasty delinquent!”

Ran pivoted so quickly she risked tumbling off the edge of the roof, “Moca! How long have you been there?”

“Who can say?” Moca shrugged with a dreamy smile and stepped into her place beside Ran. “Long enough to watch you break Moca-chan’s heart. I didn’t raise you like this.”

The singer rolled her eyes, “Sorry to disappoint, mom.”

“You’ll drive me to an early grave,” Moca sighed warily, “not as early as yours but you know cigarettes and cancer and all that.”

“Noted,” Ran refused to let Moca deter her from a third attempt. She tried inhaling less this time but she still coughed up a lung as soon as the smoke hinted down her throat.

“It’s almost as if Ran’s poor body is asking Ran to stop.”

Ran glared.

“Moca-chan will cry at your funeral, but she will also say ‘I told you so’ to your casket.” A familiar rustling sound accompanied Moca’s words.

Ran half turned, comment about Moca’s hypocrisy already on her lips, before stopping in confusion. Moca held a long blue plastic covered packet emblazoned with the label ‘Red Vines’ in her hands. “What are those?”

“Dunno, some American candy, found them in the back of the convenience store. They’re awful.” Moca held out a long, thin red tube to Ran with a grin, “you want one?”

“You just said they’re awful.”

“It’s the kind of awful you want to share with your best friend. Try it.” Moca pushed the flaccid red waxy tendril against Ran’s closed lips. “Trrry iiit Raaan.”

Ran reluctantly opened her mouth and bit down around the theoretical candy. It was like chewing half dissolved wax. There was an odd almost hypothetical sweetness that only arrived on her tongue after the candy was already gone. It wasn’t particularly tasty, though compared to the cigarette smoke it was refreshing. Ran kept the last thought to herself.

“Bad right?” Moca chomped on one of her own. “They’re like the cigarettes of candy! They’re disgusting but they make you feel a little better after. Except Red Vines won’t kill you.”

“If you really don’t want me to smoke,” Ran leaned one hand on the railing Moca rested against, very clearly trying to look cool, “give me something else to do with my lips.”

“Moca-chan already gave you a Red Vine.”

Ran’s act crumbled as her face turned the color of their sunset, “Y-you know what I mean.”

The guitarist chuckled, looping her arms around Ran’s waist, “Okay, okay, I’ll sacrifice and kiss your gross cigarette lips.”

“Don’t put it like that.”

“Don’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Fine,” Ran sighed with a smile. The Ran Mitake in Moca’s head was probably a better person then the one in Ran’s after all.

Moca kissed her with the lazy comfort of a summer’s night. Moca was never in a hurry, never had been either. It seemed like she was always exactly where she wanted to be. Ran envied that, just a little. Not enough to matter.

They kissed the afternoon away, until there was nothing but the taste of cigarettes and red vines left behind on their tongues.

* * *

Weekday classes were hard enough to get through without Nicotine withdrawal sending earthquakes down her veins. The good news was Ran’s mid-afternoon classes of grannies and housewives hardly noticed if she clipped a little too short or if her placement was a millimeter off from where she wanted it. But the deep baritone of Ran’s father always echoed in her head that granny classes were the lifeblood of the Mitake School and those 12 week hobbyist courses kept the lights on. Ran never realized how many lights there were to keep on until she was the one responsible for them.

She was 25 years old and still had a long way to go to run the Mitake Flower School but she tried. Ran justified her vices with that. She was trying. And failing, but she didn’t want to focus on that.

There was a Ran Mitake in her head she was desperate to be and that woman kept her lungs clean and her father’s school open. Until then, there were cigarettes.

The little second floor balcony was the hidden gem of the Mitake Flower School. Ran had seen it her whole life but didn’t figure out how to get up to it until half a year into her tenure (reign??) as head. It was the perfect place to hide away from the eager old men dying to give her business advice—just a meter of wood and rail suspended in the sky. Technically she was their boss anyway, even if she had a long way to go to become the proper master of the Mitake Flower Arranging School she could tell them to just leave her alone and they probably would. It was more fun to think she was hiding—made her nostalgic for the old rooftop she used to skip class on. For three years this little outside nook, barely wider than a windowsill, overlooking the alley between their building and the next, had been her getaway.

That made it sound cool, she really just smoked there.

Ran pulled her coat tight around her shoulders, trying to stave off an incoming shiver. The former delinquent, current small business owner, pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and tore it open with a guilty sigh.

One flick of her lighter later, Ran breathed deep, held the smoke for a beat and then let it all out in a single long breath. Just like singing. Except terrible. Still, the chemicals filling up her lungs eased out the tension their absence had forced. The shaking in her hands finally stilled.

Ran took another drag and rested her elbows on the railing, staring out into the nothing below her. She hated how good the first drag felt, especially by the second one. The second was never as good as the first, the third never as good as the second and so on and so forth—diminishing returns burning holes in her lungs. By the sixth she was just sending smoke spiraling off the edge of the balcony. Worst of all she hated how she’d have to do it all again in two hours.

She reached into her coat pocket, first fingering a plastic package before settling on the cardboard one that shared its pocket. She pulled out the cigarette pack, weighed it in her hand, and—on a leftover spur of youthful rebellion—pitched the pack out into the street. Ran could quit this time.

“What the hell?!” A shout rose up from the street.

Ran leaned both hands on the rail and looked over the edge at the single drop of red bent looking around to find her sudden attacker. She was two stories away but Ran could still see the moment Tomoe Udagawa’s expression changed from irritation to childish delight when their eyes met.

“You attacking me now Mitake?” Tomoe called up, waving the cigarette pack.

Ran puffed out one last smoke ring in response and jerked her head up. Tomoe disappeared into the school.

Ran rubbed an ashy line along the rail and flicked the butt into the distance where she’d sent a hundred others to blow in the wind. Littering was all the rebellion she got up to these days.

Behind her, Ran could hear the rumbling echoes of “sup! Hey! Yo!” as Tomoe individually greeted everyone she knew and everyone she ran into. Then she pulled open the door and squeezed onto the balcony that probably wasn’t meant for two.

Ran held out her hand.

“Sorry do you want something?” Tomoe laughed, “I was just about to enjoy one of my free cigarettes.”

“Tomoe.”

“If you’re nice to me maybe I’ll let you have one,” Tomoe teased but she slid the pack into Ran’s hand anyway.

Ran tapped out a cigarette, lit it in the corner of her mouth and blew a puff of smoke just to the left of Tomoe’s face.

Tomoe leaned back against the railing, “Tsugu will cry if she sees you smoking.”

“Then don’t let Tsugumi see me.”

Ran’s giant friend shuffled close. They’d been closer before. Tomoe leaned her forearm next to Ran’s arm, touching but for layers of coat between them. “How long did you make it?”

“Two days. The shakes got me.”

“Can’t arrange flowers with shaky hands.”

“Not for long…” Ran punctuated the sentence with a languid puff of smoke.

“No judgment, just curiosity,” Tomoe held out her hand. “Lemme bum one?”

“Sure.” Ran reached into her pocket again, this time ruffled around in the plastic wrapped package and pulled out something long and terrible.

Tomoe eyed the thing in her hand Ran suspiciously, “What is this?”

“A Red Vine. Have one, they’re terrible.”

“You’re really selling this,” Tomoe bit off the end anyway. Ran watched disgust and confusion cross her old friend’s face in amusement.

“It’s like chewing a melted straw dipped in something vaguely fruitish,” Tomoe ran her tongue over the back of her hand to get the taste off. “Where’d you get this?”

“One of my clients, brother in America sends her junk food,” Ran chuckled. “For some reason these aren’t popular here.”

“It’s a mystery.”

“Want another?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Ran traded the cigarette for the candy. It wasn’t that she liked the texture or flavor as much as she enjoyed disliking it. “It’s a nostalgic flavor.”

Tomoe threw her head back with a barking laugh, her wild hair, still recovering it’s length after the last time she buzzed her head in a fit of irritation, bouncing around her head like a red blossom. “You’re so weird.”

“Pot kettle. What’re you doing out here other than catching my garbage and judging my excellent taste?”

“Oh right,” she reached into the inside of her jacket and pulled out a thick envelope. “Tsugu wanted me to give you this, for the flower arrangements.”

Ran had been personally providing flower arrangements to Hazawa Coffee for three years, and Tsugumi tried to pay her each time. “She knows I’m not going to cash that check.”

“I think it’s all in bills this time,” Tomoe pushed the envelope into Ran’s hand. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m just the messenger.”

“I don’t want this,” Ran took the money nevertheless.

“Then give it back to her yourself,” Tomoe reached out and covered Ran’s cigarette holding hand with her own, the smoldering end rising between their fingers. “Give it to Sayo. She can sneak it back in or pretend to win the lottery or something.”

“You think Sayo can lie to Tsugumi?”

Tomoe snorted, “She’d make it through half a sentence and then she’d just start bowing and apologizing. Then Tsugu would start bowing and apologizing and we’d ruin their whole weekend. ‘please forgive me Tsugumi-san’ ‘no it’s my fault Sayo-san’.”

Ran exhaled to the side, “Do you think they call each other that when they have sex?”

“Probably. Probably call it making love too.”

“I don’t wanna think about that,” but Ran laughed at the image in her head of the couple that could be so in love and yet so formal. She laughed until her lungs seized and Ran found herself hacking over the railing, trying to find air.

Tomoe’s firm hand pressed between her shoulders, rubbing slowly and calming Ran enough to replace the smoke with air again. Her voice turned sympathetically serious, “You know, I can get you some patches. We get them in bulk for our regulars at the bar.”

“You literally just tried to bum one from me.” Ran tried to shake off Tomoe’s irritatingly strong hand but her grip stayed firm. The cigarette fell from her hands far below.

“Do as I say not as I do.” She let go of Ran.

“If you really want me to stop—” Ran rose up, cocking her head just so to look Tomoe in the eyes with a challenge— “give me something else to do with my lips.”

“I probably have some gum around here.”

“Tomoe.”

The way too tall woman shifted her weight around her feet, cutely embarrassed. Tomoe’s hand fell to Ran’s on the rail as the other lifted Ran’s chin just a bit higher—seriously what was the point of being that tall. Tomoe still had to hunch forward just a little so their lips could finally meet in the forceful, needy pressure that Ran had come to enjoy.

Their bodies were still too used to other people. Ran couldn’t get used to kissing someone so tall when she was made to kiss someone so much closer. Tomoe still gripped too hard, sometimes she reached to pull pigtails Ran didn’t have. But they tried for each other. All they could do was try.

Ran could sense the faint taste of something almost sweet under layers of nicotine caked on their tongues, but it was just the ghost of a memory she could never catch.


End file.
